NK Sharma retains Dera Bassi seat

Satinder Pal Singh

Dera Bassi, March 11

SAD-BJP candidate and sitting MLA NK Sharma has won the Dera Bassi seat by defeating Congress candidate Deepinder Singh Dhillon and first-timer AAP candidate Bibi Sarabjit Kaur by 1,921 votes. Out of the 17,8147 votes, Sharma polled 70,792 while his nearest rival Dhillon and Bibi Sarabjit Kaur polled 68,871 and 33,150 votes, respectively.

Sharma defeated Dhillon and Bibi Sarabjit Kaur with a modest margin. The sitting MLA made it to the Vidhan Sabha for the second consecutive time, though his 2012 victory margin touched almost 12,028 votes as compared to 1,921 votes in the 2017 Assembly elections.

In a nail-biting finish, Congress candidate Deepinder Singh Dhillon gave a remarkably tough fight to Sharma. Pitted against him for the second time, Dhillon finished second. In the first round of the counting of votes polled in Dera Bassi, Deepinder Singh Dhillon got a lead of 225 votes. In Zirakpur and Lalru, Sharma maintained the lead of over 6,158 votes which come down to 1,921 in the final round. There were 18 rounds of counting. AAP candidate Sarabjit Kaur and wife of late Capt Kanwaljit Singh, a new face, got the third position with 33,150 votes. BSP candidate Gurmeet Singh polled 1,268 votes while Dharminder Sharma of Shiv Sena secured only 892 votes.